


In Which a Witch and a Wizard Have an Interesting Morning

by Ethnee



Category: Howl's Moving Castle - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-01
Updated: 2018-03-01
Packaged: 2019-03-25 12:11:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13834026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethnee/pseuds/Ethnee
Summary: Howl's made up his mind about something, and declares it with his usual theatrics. Sophie's having none of it, and won't let him have his way until he tells the truth.





	In Which a Witch and a Wizard Have an Interesting Morning

“Sophie,” Howl said, green eyes all a-glitter, “I’ve decided to marry you.”

Sophie, who was in the process of making breakfast and had very little time for shenanigans that morning, nodded blandly. “That sounds nice.”

Howl, having expected a grander reaction than that, furrowed his brow in a frowning, yet altogether attractive way. “I had hoped you would be more excited.”

“Yes, well. Might you move your elbow? You’re blocking the spices.”

Howl begrudgingly shifted his arm, his sleeves trailing through spilt paprika as Sophie rooted about for some salt and pepper before returning to her eggs. Calcifer snickered rather unkindly as Howl pouted.

“I have announced my intentions to make a decent woman of you, Miss Hatter, and all you can think to do is attend to your breakfast?”

“ _Our_ breakfast,” Sophie amended, flipping the eggs and scraping them against the pan to cook them through. “I have much to do today and I’d rather not come home and find you’ve stolen a feast from someone. Set the table.”

Howl rather pointedly did not set the table, sweeping around the side of the hearth and standing close, leaning over her shoulder to frowningly inspect his future meal. “You’ll burn them, doing it like that,” he remarked. “Calcifer is a wicked thing.”

“He is not,” Sophie said in a stern tone, and shook the pan around a bit, making sparks fly as Calcifer seethed.

“I am wicked!” Calcifer insisted. “I am very wicked. Sophie just bullies me.”

“And has done for several years. Which is why,” Howl continued, following Sophie as she went to set the table herself, “I am proposing. Offering my hand. Taking _your_ hand. Really, Sophie, I can’t see why you haven’t accepted me yet. I would have expected you to start needling me to marry you. Most girls seem to get uppity about that sort of thing, once you’re settled and domestic as we are.” He gave her a suspicious look, peering between his locks of shoulder-length golden hair. “Are you setting a trap for me? Ignoring me just to be contrary, now that I’ve indulged what must be your heart’s desire?”

“I have better things to do than trap silly wizards in foolish games. Howl, pass me a plate.”

Howl huffed and did as requested. “Calcifer, why did I have to give my heart to such a dreadful woman? Why couldn’t we have remained as we were, when it was simple. I, a beautiful and heartless warlock, and she, a hideous cleaning woman who lived under my stairs.”

“You’re a wizard, not a warlock, and I did not live under your stairs. I lived in a closet.” Now it was Sophie’s turn to huff, scowling at her silverware as the poor knife and fork were not a precise inch apart no matter how she looked at them. “Besides, you loved me even when I was a hideous cleaning woman. And what will you do when we’re old, and I am hideous once more?”

Howl’s lips parted, a slender finger raised to signal some no-doubt elegantly phrased counterpoint. But as Sophie continued her strutting around the kitchen, Howl had no reply. He lowered his hand and tucked it into his sleeve, looking sullen. “Well, you loved me when I was heartless,” he said at last, in a last ditch attempt to save his ego.

“And that was silly of me, wasn’t it? Though sometimes I wonder if there’s really so much a difference between how you acted then and how you carry on now.”

Howl gasped, rather dramatically, slapping one hand to his chest with a flutter of his sleeve. “Sophie Hatter, you wound me. I am a changed man. I have been a changed man! Have I not proven myself to you, time and time again?”

“Debatable at best,” Sophie replied, and began pouring scrambled eggs onto plates. “Ring me when the toast is done, won’t you?” she asked the nearest clock. The brass hands did not reply.

Howl let out a noise of despair, and stumbled to the chair in front of the fire, falling into it and stretching his gangly legs in a distraught pose. “I am wounded. I am betrayed. She won’t have me, Calcifer. Every beat of my heart is torture. Damn this cursed organ, it giveth and taketh pleasure at the whims of its cruel mistress, the Lady Hatter. If only it were in the possession of a kinder, more loving woman. But no, it yearns only for the haggard Hatter, empress of cleanliness and chaos.”

The mourning wizard was interrupted at the loud chime of the clock. “The toast!” Sophie cried, and leapt for the hearth, saving the bread just before it went from crisp to blackened.

“Sophie,” Howl said beseechingly, as he stood and followed her around the room once more. “Why do you injure me so? Why do you cast me off? Do I mean that little to you?”

Sophie still did not fully look at him, frowning into space as she reached into her strawberry curls and fumbled with them, yanking them up into a messy bun. “I have several visits to make today. The Millers want a charm to help their child sleep, so I was hoping to talk some sense into the little one’s teddy bear, but I don’t know how long that’ll take. And I was planning to have lunch with Martha again. See how things are getting on.”

“By God, Sophie.” Howl leapt forward, clasping the girl about the shoulders and wrenching her to look at him, face twisted with longing and despair. “Can I not have your attention for one minute? How can you not believe even a word of what I’m telling you?”

Startled by the sudden, striking effect of looking into Howl’s eyes, Sophie kept quiet for a few moments, before sighing and wiggling from the wizard’s grip. “Because, Howl,” she said, “overly romantic gestures do not suit you. I have never asked to marry you, and I don’t know what’s inspired this… event, and quite frankly I don’t wish to find out. I’m sure I will, sooner or later, but I _do_ have things to do today.”

She attempted to slip away, but Howl held fast. “Then I suppose I shall just have to prove it to you,” he declared, and before she could reply he’d spun her around and tilted her back, capturing her in a very dramatic kiss.

Calcifer blazed orange, and snapped in a rather distinct way that sounded like wry, amused clapping. Howl held this kiss for several moments, one arm wrapped around Sophie’s waist and the other held to her cheek. Then he pulled back, holding Sophie close to him and looking into her eyes with a self-satisfied, triumphant grin across his face. “Well?” he asked.

Sophie lingered as before, struck dumb by the full force of Howl’s eyes and smile. He had that effect on most everyone, if you looked him in the eyes too much. Part of her did long for those glass-eye days. He’d been easier to refuse then.

But she regained herself, and stuck out her chin in a defiant gesture, meeting his gaze. “You’ll have to do better than that, I’m afraid,” she announced. “And my eggs are getting cold.”

With a whine, Howl released her, staring after her as she plucked some fruit from the bowl on the table and added it to her plate. “Sophie, what am I doing _wrong_?” he pleaded. “Why will you not accept me?”

There was a note to his voice that hadn’t been there yet in this whole performance, one that made Sophie stop, hand clasped around a ripe yellow-red apple. Her shoulders relaxed, and he could not see her face from where he was standing. “Shall I tell you, Mr. Pendragon?”

“Please, do,” Howl replied, frustrated.

She looked at him, hair flipping over her shoulder as she turned her head aside, face screwed up in a stubborn look. “You’re a liar, and trying too hard. I’m not marrying a liar.”

“I am not lying!” he insisted, and sat at the table, now looking up at her. “I want to marry you!”

Her gaze remained fixed on him, hard and unfeeling. “Why?”

He released a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “What a ridiculous question! Shouldn’t you be happy? I have been a loyal lover for years, and now I desire to make you my wife. To give you my name and half of my household. What woman would refuse me?”

“Any one who knows you,” Sophie deadpanned. “Answer my question, _Howell Jenkins_. Why do you want to marry me?”

He squirmed, both from the use of his given name and the enforcement of honesty upon him. “I don’t think I should have to answer the question-”

And then Sophie looked away, impassive as ever, sitting down beside him at the table and lifting her fork. “Then I suppose we shall never be married. I’m going to-”

“No, no, no. No, wait! Damn you, Hatter. You are so cold.”

Sophie sighed and let her fork fall to her plate with a clink, turning to meet his gaze with another hard look. “Why do you want to marry me, Howl?”

Again he withered under the question, but the pursing and unpursing of his lips meant he was closer to an answer. “Because,” he began, stilted and hesitant. “Isn’t this what you’re supposed to do? About now? A few years, living together. Living, working. Sharing intimacy-” He reached a hand across the table, but Sophie pushed it away before she could tell if he was reaching for her cheek or her thigh.

“Not good enough,” she said. “Go on.”

“Because,” he huffed, “you are very beautiful, and I am very beautiful, and logic dictates we would have beautiful children?”

Sophie’s eyebrows rose into her head, but she said nothing.

“Because,” he tried, “enough people assume we’re husband and wife, that just going ahead and doing it would save us the trouble of explaining? Plus we’d get to have a lovely party. Multiple parties, in fact. If I got married and didn’t have a ceremony in Wales, I’d never hear the end of it. And I’m sure you’d want something in Ingary. Or we could have a ceremony administered by the king. In fact, we could-”

“Howl.” Sophie tapped a finger against the table impatiently.

“Right. Because-” He thought for a moment. “Because you love me?”

She arched a brow, and tilted her head to one side.

Howl sighed, his shoulders slumping. True defeat was written across his face. A man at the end of his rope, with no defenses left, worn down by the indomitable force of Sophie’s will. “Because I love you, Sophie Hatter, you wretched old thing.”

Sophie smiled, with just a hint of smugness and triumph. “Well, now that’s much better. Now you have to properly ask me to marry you.”

“I already did that!” Howl exclaimed, indignantly. “I asked you that at the beginning of all this! Why can’t that one count?”

“Because I said so,” Sophie said, mildly. “Now, ask me properly.” Howl sighed and started to rise from his chair, making as though to kneel on the ground, before Sophie waved an impatient hand. “No, that’s not it. Properly.”

“Your demands are impossible,” Howl said, frustrated again. “What do you want from me, Hatter?”

“For you not to slither out behind performance and posturing,” she stated, arching a brow at him. “Now. Do it properly.”

Howl stared at her pleadingly for a few moments, before giving in. He sighed, and hung his head, chin lolling against his collarbone for a minute before he drew himself up with a deep breath, shoulders back and puffing out his chest. “Sophie Hatter,” he began, then at her look faltered. He pressed his lips together, then pulled his chair a little closer to hers, with an embarrassing squeal of the legs against the floor. He winced, but Sophie cracked half a smile, and that encouraged him.

He reached, tentatively, for her hand, and when she didn’t rebuff him he placed his own around it, feeling the calluses on her palm and fingertips against the soft, well-kept skin of his hands. Calluses from years of sticking herself with pins in a hat shop, and then wielding brooms and feather dusters with an inhuman fervor. He found himself enchanted with her hand for a moment, then looked up and found her staring at him expectantly.

He cleared his throat to remove a sudden, unexpected lump. “Sophie Hatter-” he tried, then started again. “Sophie,” he said. “Would you… please… do me the honor of marrying me?” His heart thumped, painfully, in his chest. He hadn’t lied when he said each beat was torture. “Because I love you,” he blurted, before she could reply. “Because I would like to keep you, if that’s alright. I know there’s probably not much chance of you running off with any other ridiculous wizards, but I’d still like to keep that chance as small as possible. And I wouldn’t mind if you got old and wrinkly. There’s always magic for that. Not!” he said, at her change in expression. “That you’d need magic. You’d look lovely even with all the wrinkles in the world.”

“And I do think we’d have nice children. I’d always liked the idea of one or two, you know, to run around, keep things interesting. And there’s a half and half chance they’d inherit your sense but my good looks, and it’d be fun to inflict that on the world.” He swallowed a nervous laugh, and realized he’d been avoiding looking at her eyes, so he made himself meet them. “So… yes. Sophie. I would like to marry you. If you don’t mind putting up with me for another while.”

Sophie smiled. “Yes, Howl. I would like to marry you, as well.”

“Well, isn’t that just adorable,” Calcifer said, drawing both of their attentions. “Can you please remove the grate, now? I have a very important date and I’ve made your breakfast, so I must be off.”

Sophie and Howl shared a look, then Sophie glanced, frowning, at their plates. “The eggs have gone cold,” she said, and took both from the table, walking towards the hearth. “I’ll have to reheat them first.”

Calcifer gave a wail of protest that was promptly ignored, and Howl stared at Sophie -- at his _wife_ , or soon to be -- and grinned like a fool.


End file.
